


a coin flip between horror and delight

by rhale



Category: Diablo III
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Corpse explosion, Gen, I named my Necromancer Persephone, Just the nephilim and the scoundrel bein' bros, Lyndon the Scoundrel Appreciation Society, if all of your friends are pure of heart then who can you show your most horrible powers?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:28:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27150445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhale/pseuds/rhale
Summary: It wasn’t as though Lyndon thought their dear friend disliked him. Of course not.Well, they’d gotten off to a bit of a rough start, that was true. The white-haired necromancer had been distinctly unimpressed with his circumstances during their meeting. And it turned out that having someone whose magical power manipulated the dead think your actions were in poor taste was rather a hard pill to swallow.
Relationships: Female Necromancer & Lyndon the Scoundrel
Kudos: 12





	a coin flip between horror and delight

**Author's Note:**

> I was leveling a Necromancer a little while back (2020 may only be soothed with exploding corpses) and I was running around with the templar when I realized that there was only one follower who would properly appreciate her particular skills.

It wasn’t as though Lyndon thought their dear friend disliked him. Of course not.

Well, they’d gotten off to a bit of a rough start, that was true. The white-haired necromancer had been distinctly unimpressed with his circumstances during their meeting. And it turned out that having someone whose magical power manipulated the _dead_ think your actions were in poor taste was rather a hard pill to swallow.

And it was also true that Persephone had found reasons to leave Lyndon in the camp. She’d asked him to look after the blacksmith, to keep the the jeweler from wandering off. She’d even asked him to keep an eye on the mystic — and that had been one of the more entertaining afternoons in recent memory. The mystic might’ve kept her secrets, but she knew more bawdy tavern-house songs than anyone else Lyndon had ever met.

But even so, even conspicuously left behind while Persephone went off into the miserable, demon-infested wilds with the insufferably devout Kormac or the sweet-but-terrifying Eirena, she always made sure to bring him gifts. At first he’d thought it might’ve been a bribe. A way to keep him from robbing their little company when left alone too long and a little too bored. Not that that would ever stop him, of course. The riches were nice, but when they were just handed over they weren’t particularly thrilling.

But no, the gifts were more than that. It became clear, the way Persephone brought back bows she thought he might like. Interesting dice with a magical glow that she’d said reminded her of him. Rings that made his fingers feel more nimble on the bowstring. Everything was perfectly suited to him. Everything said that even though she hadn’t really had cause to see him in action, she’d been paying enough attention to know what he’d like.

It was all very flattering, of course. But it was still deeply confusing.

Especially since it was clear that all of his natural and effortless flirtation were merely amusing to Persephone, rather than something that was relevant to her interests.

That was why, when she came up to him in the little camp they’d made along the road to the next god-forsaken place, Lyndon was surprised to hear her invite him on an excursion.

“Lyndon,” she’d said gravely. The way she said everything. “I would appreciate your company. I’ve picked up a bounty in this area.”

“Finally!” Lyndon crowed, hopping to his feet at once. “You will not regret this. Treasure and victory will be ours.”

She only gave him one of her enigmatic smiles, a small quirk of her lips, a sidelong glance, before ducking her head and gesturing out of camp. She waited until they’d cleared the thicket of trees before calling up some of the ghastly things that followed along after her, intelligence gone from their eyes, but somehow friendly-looking all the same.

“What is it you needed my help with, old girl?” Lyndon asked breezily. “Sticky lock? Fabulous treasure room? Need to seduce a princess?” he waggled his eyebrows at the mage but she only smiled that same smile.

“I wish to show you something. I think you might appreciate it.”

At the beginning of their acquaintance, that smile might have made him nervous. Now, Lyndon rather thinks he’d be fine with being the victim of a bloody sacrifice, if only to break up the _monotony_.

He followed her out into the field and it wasn’t long before the low groans of their monstrous enemies filtered across the open air to the pair of them. Lyndon waited for some signal from the necromancer, some indication that she wanted to lead a charge.

But she was utterly still. Utterly calm.

“Do you see that shambling corpse — the one in the dinner jacket?” Persephone pointed a graceful hand toward a creature in the middle of a throng of the undead.

“It might’ve been the fashion when the chap died, for all we know,” Lyndon quipped. “But yes. I see him.”

“Kill him. Just him. One shot,” her eyes twinkled with a sly sort of mischief. “If you can.”

“If I can,” Lyndon huffed and pulled an arrow from his quiver. “You’ll eat those words, my dear.” He lined up the shot, feeling the crackle of fire magic waiting just behind the grip of the bow — another gift from dear Persephone — and then he let it fly.

It struck home, plowing through the rotting chest of his target, plunging through tissue and bone and cratering the monstrous construct to the ground.

“There.” Lyndon said, satisfied. “But that rather seems like something I’ve shown _you_.”

“Just watch,” she whispered, and Lyndon shivered at the feeling of footsteps on his grave.

Her face changed. Her eyes went bright and dark at the same time, her skin fading until the curve of her skull beneath was so clear as to almost look like a mask she wore. Her breath chilled the air in front of her face and she reached forward with a suddenly skeletal hand, blue mist swirling over and around her arm — and Lyndon jerked his head to the field when he heard the first sound.

An explosion.

The undead creature he had felled burst outward in a spray of bone shards and rotting flesh. The bone fragments pierced the creatures around it and they fell to the dirt.

Persephone pulsed again.

And the entire bloody field _exploded_. Every fallen creature shattered outward, flinging bone and metal and blood in a hideous frenzy. It was like a shockwave. Like an _earthquake_ moving through the throngs of enemies. They burst in waves, taking out the next rank of monsters until the entire field was covered in blood and gore and not a single moving thing.

She’d cleared the entire field.

A delighted cackle had risen in Lyndon’s throat and escaped from his mouth before he could clamp down on it. When he chanced another glance at Persephone’s face, waiting to see judgment for being so tickled by the gore, he saw only a guilty, pleased smile.

“Kormac…Eirena…they would not appreciate that.” Persephone shrugged, arm lowered, visage returned to normal. “I thought you might.”

“You, my dear girl, have been holding _out_ on me.” Lyndon chuckled and clapped a hand onto Persephone’s alarmingly bone-covered shoulder. Neatly avoiding the spikes, of course. “They will run when they see us. Come on. Let’s get after that bounty, then, eh?”


End file.
